Surgical stitches have been used for more than three thousand years to close wounds or otherwise join organic anatomical structures. More than half of the time during any procedure or surgery devoted to achieve tissue bonding, by placement of surgical stitches. Singular, interrupted stitches are the simplest type to create tissue bounding. At the same time, singular stitches are just stationary adhesion points, and spacing in-between stitches are interrupted approximation “gaps” of the wound's edges. Re-epithelization or filling the gaps by the specialized tissue cell layers, forming anatomical tissue structures like epidermal, muscle, or fascia layers, starts from formation of different types of connective tissue, which becomes the future base of scar formation. Each hand-placed singular stitch is accompanied by multiple surgical ties, which create a surgical suture knots. After trimming of access of suture material above the knots, some amount of suture materials permanently left in the wound. With time, these stitching materials became rejected by the body, turn into a source of purulent inflammation, and “spit out” by the body through infected fistulas. Single, uninterrupted sutures may result in unwanted tissue adhesion or cosmetically inferior outcomes. Therefore, single surgical stitches are not the optimum technology for wound closure.
Continuous uninterrupted stitches provide the flexible, steady, and sealed bounding for wound's edges, with marginal amount of suture left. Some sutures are made from absorbable surgical materials and do not require removing after wound's healing. Non-absorbable surgical sutures used in continuous uninterrupted stitches provides the same benefits for healing, but the suture filaments are removed from the forming scar as a single unit, preventing inflammatory or rejection body responses.
The most-often used surgical needle is a disposable, semi-circular, so called swaged surgical needles. A typical swaged needle is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,913,875, which is incorporated by reference herein in its entirety, wherein a suture material or filament is secured to a swaged end of the surgical needle while the other, operative end is pointed in a taper or cutting edge.
Complex stitching techniques require more skills and time from the operating team using swaged needles. Therefore, in many instances the stitching is simplified. Multiple surgical specialties utilize a multilayered closure for the wound, including a layer of absorbable stitches on a sub-dermal single interrupted layer, then a sub-dermal line of inverted singular absorbable stitches (subdermal layer), covered by a layer of dermal singular, interrupted non-absorbable stitches or metal staples, and a surgical adhesive (e.g., Dermabond) layer at the end.
Some have attempted to develop a double-pointed needle, such as those needles disclosed in European Patent Application No. 0985382 of Baek Seung Jun and U.S. Pat. No. 2,516,710 of Delfino P. Mascolo. However, the inventor has found that such needles are either prone to brittle failure at the connection point between the filament and the needle and/or assembly required by the surgical team prior to use, and/or were not disposable and could aid in the spread of blood borne diseases.
The present invention is directed toward overcoming one or more of the problems discussed above with the prior art circular, swaged needles and the double-pointed needles.